How to become major flower exporter

Growing gerberas has yielded a profit of more than VND240 million per hectare per year in Me Linh District’s Tay Tuu Commune in Hanoi, while Lisianthuses yield more than VND1 billion per hectare. Rural areas which have shifted to growing flowers have seen their local economies develop.

Lam Dong-based Dalat Hasfarm is a successful Vietnamese flower exporter. Starting-up in 1994 with capital of only US$700,000 and 3-4ha of land, the company currently has 300ha of flowers belonging to three farms and 350 staff members. Its flowers accounted for 98 percent of all 95 million sprigs Vietnam has exported so far.

Vegetable and Fruit Research Institute Deputy Director Dr Dang Van Dong said that Vietnam had about 15,000ha of flowers and ornamental plants in 2007 and has increased the flower growing area to about 27,300ha so far.

Seeing Vietnam’s potential, Ota, a Japanese leading flower wholesales group, has a plan to partner with Lam Dong Province to establish a flower production enterprise at the end of 2017.

Untapped potential

Vietnam’s flower-growing area is as large as Spain which stands fifth in Europe. However, Vietnamese flower exports contributed a meager US$60 million of total more than US$30 billion worth of Vietnamese agricultural, forest product and seafood exports. The figure is also too modest when compared with US$130 billion worth of global flower deals.

According to the Hanoi University of Agriculture’s International Development Center former director Dr Nguyen Quoc Vong, flower growing areas in Vietnam such as Lao Cai Province’s Sa Pa, Lam Dong’s Da Lat and Son La’s Moc Chau can fully meet the demand for flower exports. “Moc Chau and Lam Dong are giant natural greenhouses. However, the potential has not been realized as only 3,500ha of land in Lam Dong has been used for flower production,” he said.

Vietnamese flowers have entered not only Japan, the largest flower market in Asia, but also China, Southeast Asian countries and Europe. Vietnamese flower exports to Japan has increased by four-fold during the last 10 years and competitive prices have also created major advantages for Vietnamese flowers.

Despite numerous advantages, Vietnam failed to develop the flower industry in a stable and sustainable manner and to meet demand both in terms of quantity and quality.

To foster the development of the flower industry, Dang Van Dong underlined the need to increase high-tech applications to reduce production costs and increase productivity, quality of flower and investment efficiency, while at the same time investing in sales.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Dang Doanh:

Flowers are considered a major industry contributing to restructuring crops and rapidly increasing incomes when compared with other normal crops.